Trump Makes a Final Push to Capture Latino Voters in Florida

The president is dangling a Supreme Court nomination and disaster aid to get the votes of Florida’s Latinos, but will it work?

Andrea González-Ramírez
GEN

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Barbara Lagoa, a Cuban American federal judge from Florida whom Trump is currently considering nominating to the Supreme Court. Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

President Donald Trump is going the extra mile to capture Latino votes in Florida, hoping that the potential appointment of a conservative Supreme Court justice of Hispanic descent in combination with a series of key policy decisions affecting the community will earn him enough goodwill to help him win the state again.

Trump is currently considering nominating Barbara Lagoa, a Cuban American federal judge from Florida, to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the U.S. Supreme Court. A dark horse in the nomination process, she doesn’t have the name recognition or the same prized anti-abortion track record as some of the other judges in the shortlist. The 52-year-old also only became a federal judge when she was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in December 2019. But in Lagoa, Trump has an opportunity to sway Cuban and other Latino voters in the Sunshine State; she would be the second Latina justice in the nation’s history.

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Andrea González-Ramírez
GEN
Writer for

Award-winning Puerto Rican journalist. Senior Writer at New York Magazine’s The Cut. Formerly GEN, Refinery29, and more. Read my work: https://www.thecut.com/